Citrix XenServer Monitoring

Last updated on 30 September, 2024

To monitor a Citrix XenServer installation, the LogicMonitor collector needs credentials to connect to the XenServer(s).

  1. Define the properties xen.user, xen.pass, and xen.url on either the global, group, or device level. Please note: unless you are using Active Directory authentication, the xen.user will typically be root.
  2. Add the XenServer as a device, as normal.

Note: If you are running a resource pool of XenServers, all Xen specific monitoring data for the entire pool will be collected from the pool master.  However, you should still add all pool members to LogicMonitor for collection of device specific performance data and alerts.

It is strongly recommended to enable SNMP and to allow the LogicMonitor collector to query ntp on all XenServer devices.  This enables LogicMonitor to collect more detailed data about device performance than is available solely relying on the Citrix XenServer API.

To enable SNMP on a Citrix XenServer, follow the procedures in “How to Configure SNMP in XenServer 5.x” from the Citrix site.

The procedures below detail how to enable both SNMP and NTP access.

  • Access the command shell of the XenServer (via ssh or from the console).
  • Open the file/etc/sysconfig/iptables in your preferred editor.
  • Add the following lines to the INPUT section after the line with -A RH-Firewall-1-INPUT –p udp –dport 5353… :

-A RH-Firewall-1-INPUT -p udp –dport 161 -j ACCEPT

-A RH-Firewall-1-INPUT -p udp –dport 123 -j ACCEPT

  • Save and close the file.
  • Restart the firewall service:

# service iptables restart

Citrix XenServer – SNMP Configuration

Change SNMP configuration

We recommend you replace the  /etc/snmp/snmpd.conf with a simple version:

rocommunity YOURSNMPCOMMUNITY 10.0.0.0/8

Change the 10.0.0.0/8 to the network containing the IP address of the LogicMonitor collectors that will monitor this XenServer.

If you are running Dell hardware you will also want to include these lines in snmpd.conf so the underlying hardware can be monitored via the Dell OpenManage suite of packages

smuxsocket 127.0.0.1
smuxpeer .1.3.6.1.4.1.674.10892.1

After updating the snmpd.conf file, set snmpd to start on boot and start it now:

# chkconfig snmpd on

# service snmpd restart

NTP configuration

insert a line allowing the LogicMonitor collector to query the ntp daemon in /etc/ntp.conf

restrict 10.0.0.0 mask 255.255.255.0

Change the ip address and mask as appropriate to include your LogicMonitor collector(s) IP address.

You may add multiple restrict lines.
Restart ntp:
# service ntpd restart

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